Looking Forward To The End Of Hot August Nights

Monsoon season certainly has been good to the Rim Country this year, hasn’t it? It’s brought much-needed rainfall to our parched land. For this, we can be very thankful.

The abundant rainfalls we’ve had this season have been wonderful, but, to be honest, I can certainly do without the intense heat and oppressing humidity of late summer. I’m really glad that the hot, steamy days of late summer are coming to an end.

Actually, I’d be more than happy if the temperature never climbed above 75, nor I ever again had to sleep through a hot August night.

This past Saturday night, as the rains were soaking the Rim Country once again (and the rodeo fans at the event center), I was reminded of one of my favorite albums, “Hot August Night.”

“Hot August Night” was a live, double album that was a recording of a concert on Aug. 24, 1972, one of 10 sold-out concerts that this week’s music trivia artist performed that month at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

This pop-rock singer/guitarist/composer was born in 1941 in Brooklyn, N.Y. to a Jewish family descended from Russian and Polish immigrants.

He wrote under the pseudonym Mark Lewis and early in his career considered changing his name to Noah Kaminski.

This talented artist wrote for the Monkees TV show, wrote the score for the movie “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and composed the music and starred in “The Jazz Singer.” He was America’s top male vocalist from 1966-86.

As of 2001, he has 115 million records sold worldwide, including 48 million records in the U.S. In terms of his Billboard chart success, he is the third most successful adult contemporary artist ever, ranking behind only Barbra Streisand and Elton John.

In his 20-year recording career, this music icon produced 55 charted hits, 13 of which made it into Billboard’s Top 10. His three No. 1 hits were “Cracklin’ Rosie” (1970), “Song Sung Blue” (1972) and his 1978 duet with Barbra Streisand, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.”

Some of his other top hits that were also included on his “Hot August Night” album were “Solitary Man,” “Sweet Caroline” and “Kentucky Woman.”

This week’s music trivia question is: Can you name the singer who recorded the 1972 album “Hot August Night”? Was it A) Neil Young, B) Neil Sedaka, C) Neil Diamond or D) Neil Downtapray?

This week, if you’re caller number six and have the right answer, you’ll win a CD of this artist’s top hits.

Now, let’s see how we did with last week’s music trivia question, which was: Can you match the following country music singers: A) Patsy Cline, B) Lady Antebellum and C) the Zac Brown Band with their respective songs, 1) I Run To You, 2) Chicken Fried and 3) Crazy?